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Monocle Magnifier - Illuminated

Description: When working with small parts, sometimes you need magnification and some extra light. This is a monocle we use regularly in our production facility. It has a 10x lens with a working distance of about 1-½". The 1" diameter eye piece fits snugly around your eye with a 15" aluminum-core headband. The LED provides sufficient light at the working distance.

This loop magnifier set itself apart in our eyes because of the little LED on the side. Trying to view SMD connections is hard enough - the LED on the side is a huge help for those close up inspections.

LED battery comes installed.

Note: We’ve recently received a shipment of these magnifiers with 15x lenses instead of 10x. When ordering this product you may receive the 15x or the 10x as we transition the stock.

Customer Comments

Be honest; how many of you have replaced the LED with a laser diode so that you could be more Borg-like? It’s okay, we’re all fr–Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

David:The top-of-the-line magnifier to use while soldering is probably a Luxo Wave+Plus Magnifier which DigiKey and Mouser both sell. Its a rectangular illuminated lens on adjustable arm with no distortion across the entire glass areas unlike the cheap ones you see on Amazon and such. Unfortunately these things run around $400-$500 :p
Go to a Chemist (Drug Store) For about $8 you can get 5x readers (glasses (spectacles)for old people) - These give you perfect stereo soldering vision for SMD.

Don’t expect much for $10. The lens is awful. Distortion. I can’t believe Sparkfun uses it on a production line. Maybe I can find a good lens to swap into it because the headband and light are pretty good.

I really dont like this product. I expected to be able to wear it, and use it for precision soldering work, but the headband is uncomfortable, and the focal point is around 2 inches from the board.
If you try to solder wearing this, it cannot be done without feeling the heat and vapour of the iron almost touching your nose :-)
My advice is to find something else, and use this only for inspecting joints.
Id also recommend instead, the “Illuminated LED Eye Loupe” which doesnt have the headband, and is a little more comfortable to use (although still not suitable for soldering, just inspection)

I just got back from the Sparkfun SMD soldering class. I used one of these for 30+ minutes off and on to INSPECT my joints.
I wear glasses but found for inspection it worked well. The focal length was probably about an inch or so away from the lens. But even with my bad eyes I was able to get a clear crisp view. The led light was particularly nice, it actually worked well to illuminate the viewing area.
I took the head band off, it easily pops off and on. I removed my glasses, held the loupe to my eye, and positioned the board as desired. Crisp images with excellent detail.
The down side is it is completely plastic doesn’t have a very sturdy feel. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the LED busted off or the loupe cracked. For 10 bucks it’s probably not a bad deal (although you can find them cheaper with a little leg work) but I wouldn’t expect it to last a lifetime.

Awesome product… until you drop the loupe, the LED holster cracks open, then you realize its impossible to fix it because its a cheap plastic mechanism to hold two batteries and an LED together rather shoddily.

I couldnt agree more! The focal point is way to close to the board, and they are unconfortable. I was hoping there would be a picture of someone wearing one so i could see if im doing it wrong, but there isnt :(devlinse:Perhaps I’m using this wrong, but the head band is neither comfortable or particularly supportive and while it certainly magnifies effectively, the focal point is about 2" so it’s no good for soldering - your nose is very close to the iron.
As such it’s very much an inspection tool.

The top-of-the-line magnifier to use while soldering is probably a Luxo Wave+Plus Magnifier which DigiKey and Mouser both sell. Its a rectangular illuminated lens on adjustable arm with no distortion across the entire glass areas unlike the cheap ones you see on Amazon and such. Unfortunately these things run around $400-$500 :p

Perhaps I’m using this wrong, but the head band is neither comfortable or particularly supportive and while it certainly magnifies effectively, the focal point is about 2" so it’s no good for soldering - your nose is very close to the iron.
As such it’s very much an inspection tool.

I use this all the time to check for solder bridges and read chip numbers.. very helpful with the small led light.
I found the focal length to be pretty close to the eyepiece too so yea, you wouldn’t want to use this to solder.
Perhaps I’m just slow for taking a few minutes to figure this out, but the best way to wear it seems to be to have it wrap across your face (i.e. have the wire run from the unit over your forehead and ear opposing the eye the unit is on)

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